Sun Microsystems Inc, a cheap tech stock who lives up to its name with ambitious eco-initiatives

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA), whose stock price has been beaten down in recent years, may have found some answers to turn the tide. The company has recently been concentrating on taking the lead in many eco-friendly initiatives related to IT infrastructure and have themselves shown dramatic reductions in their own energy use.

The company provides network computing infrastructure product and service solutions worldwide which are used in many industries including, technical/scientific, business, engineering, telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing, retail, government, life sciences, media and entertainment, transportation, energy/utilities, and healthcare.

Recent developments include a new state of the art data center, new energy efficient server products, and a newly formed organization dedicated to environmental conscientiousness. Such initiatives recently earned them a $1 million incentive payment from local utility Silicon Valley Power. Wall Street is starting to take notice of how their green strategy can give them the edge on their competition

The stock traded as high as the mid-60s seven years ago and considering their new products and plans to offer solutions to help solve the problem of IT energy demands, I love the idea of buying it here under $6.00 per share.

I do not own the stock as of this post but considering Tech's history of 4th quarter performance, I will take a position once the market settles down from its recent volatility.

Why following an NFL team's success may be good for your portfolio

Suggestions of "Best NFL team ever" have been the buzz words in recent weeks and the past few years while describing the New England Patriots NFL franchise. Currently undefeated at 7-0 and past success in 3 Superbowls suggest that team owner Robert Kraft knows how to be a leader.

Now a member of the board of directors at Viacom (VIA-B) since 2005, investors should pay attention to Mr. Kraft's business success over the years and what that could mean to investors by following companies that he is directly involved in. Listed by Forbes as one of the richest men in the world by building a paper and packaging goliath, Mr. Kraft proves why management and personnel choices translate to overall top and bottom line performance. Also important to note for the socially conscious investor, his paper and and packaging businesses are very much involved in the recycling arena to compliment their overall strategy.

Recent SEC filings have shown that Mr. Kraft, probably as part of his compensation package, has been building a very comfortable position for himself by exercising and acquiring options on Viacom stock over the past couple of years. Now this provides for a pretty good incentive for him to perform well while on the board and even if the stock suffers somewhat he still comes out a winner. Now while the stock has traded in a narrow range for the last couple of years ($35-$45) I like the idea of following his lead by looking at the stock at these reasonable levels below $40 per share.

If his private business and football successes are anything to go by, investors should get in the game and score a touchdown with one of the richest men in the world.

Its October 23rd and almost halfway through the NFL season and I "expect", not "hope" that the Patriots will go undefeated this year. I expect the same performance from Viacom in the next few years as media companies thrive in the current globalization environment.

I do not own Viacom as of this post, but I will be adding it to my overall investment and trading strategies. I am also a "huge" Patriots fan.

Fuel cell race heats up for for hybrid vehicles, United Technologies powers ahead

Dow Jones Industrials component and multinational conglomerate United Technologies (UTX NYSE) offers investors diversification, as well as a solid track record of growth. But for those seeking a solid green investment pick when it comes to fuel cell technology, pay close attention to what one of their units, UTC Power, has accomplished in the race to make the hybrid vehicle market a commercially accepted reality today, not in years to come.

The company has already made great strides by supplying major auto makers with fuel cell technology for their hybrid prototypes. While these models are not being mass produced just yet the company has an appealing mix of clients including BMW, a luxury automaker, Nissan and Hyundai who are two top selling behemoths and in the larger vehicle market, they currently supply fuel cell powered buses in the state of California.

Now while the hydrogen fuel cell idea has some infrastructure issues such as the scarce availability of hydrogen filling stations, the technology has advantages over other alternative energy solutions. For one, which is probably most important, is that fuel cell technology is probably the nearest term solution to providing energy production in automobiles with virtually no carbon dioxide emissions.

Also, people who are on the "ethanol" bandwagon need to be sensitive to the fact that high volume ethanol production puts upward pressure on food prices because of the amount of crops that will have to be supplied to produce the fuel. I don't believe that is worth the cost whereas fuel cell technology does not have this problem.

Beyond the exciting rapid pace of development in this arena, United Technologies recently reported third quarter earnings of $1.2 billion dollars, up 20 percent over the prior period and well ahead of Wall St. expectations. Revenues for the quarter were just over $13 billion.

Performance like this is why they are in the illustrious Dow 30 stocks. Add to that an ambitious recipe to help solve the world's power demands absent of oil and the other dirty alternatives, this company earned the right to be one of my top holdings as a real time play on green automobile technology.

The stock pulled back with the recent market sell-off two days ago, but that what makes it attractive to me at these levels. It closed yesterday at $77.43 per share.

Visit United Technologies' website for a look at the company's environmental objectives and currently deployed power project profiles.

For a list of fuel cell vehicles in production visit this link or for those who would like to see an organized list of other alternative energy investment stocks broken down by category click here.

Fox launches business channel, CNBC and Bloomberg brace for impact

Its early this Monday morning and the new Fox business channel officially began airing at 4:00am. Now there is a new kid on the block for financial news media and my biggest problem is which channel will my television be locked on during the trading day.

CNBC and Bloomberg were the only other major business channels to watch in the past and it will be interesting to see the different programming formats that will lure viewers from one channel to the other. Hopefully this could be the end of watching late night infomercials and gameshows on CNBC or the continuous market scoreboards and scrolling tickers that made Bloomberg such a boring channel to stay tuned too.

So what can one or the other do to win the ratings game?

I miss the old days when CNBC (formerly FNN) would have guests like John Murphy, a well respected technical analyst, come on the program to highlight particular charting patterns and trends that helped me become a better technical analyst. I also miss the days of Dan Dorfman, who would highlight daily rumors and market events that would make stocks skyrocket or dive in a flash.

If any of these major networks focus not just on informing the investing public, but on actually educating investors, I believe this would be the missing ingredient that would set one apart from the rest. Many times I hear novice investors say "I don't understand anything that they are talking about, interest rates? Trade deficits? The value of the dollar?, What does this have to do with whether I should buy Google (GOOG) at $600 plus dollars per share?"

Financial TV has become just as much of an information overload, like the Internet, when it comes to the hundreds of differing opinions of what stocks and industry groups are at buying or shorting levels. Just once I would like one of these channels to set aside a time slot to explain to people actual fundamental analytics, financial planning techniques, portfolio management strategies or options strategies as a compliment to an overall investing plan. Many people are constantly told what the best stocks to buy are and why, but rarely do I see guests and analysts on these programs tell investors what to sell and the reason for their bearishness. Also, never do I see one of these market gurus say "Hey, I was wrong on this pick six months ago, but here is what I did to cut my losses and move on to the next episode."

That is the main conflict for these channels. The goal of providing news and information only without crossing the line into a third party advisory medium thereby drifting from complete objectivity and opening up liability questions resulting endless repetitive disclosure policy, is a fine line that these news providers must straddle. Today's viewer is just as much interested in what they should do in reaction to a market news event rather than just absorbing the event and letting the chips fall where they may, regardless of the impact to one's portfolio.

The future of the world of Financial news media will probably lie in an on-demand environment rather than a "shove it in your face, this is what is important" programming format. If an investor wants to know what to do about Google, it would be a better service so that when you enter GOOG into the search box, instead of a chart with company specific statistics and news headlines indexed by that stock symbol for the result, a listing of analyst interviews and opinions comes up related to that symbol or a listing of past trading strategies using that actual symbol would give investors a better overview of what move to make at any given time and what situations to avoid.

For now though, I will switch between both CNBC and Fox because they have the prettiest news anchors.